From NEHJ: Haggerty is RPI’s marked man

RPI junior Ryan Haggerty is drawing a lot of attention - including
from opponents, who are doing their darnedest to keep him from
scoring at the same clip as he started the season. (Photo by Mick
Neal)

After tormenting opposing ECAC
Hockey teams for much of November and December, RPI junior forward
Ryan Haggerty (Stamford, Conn.) drew the superstar treatment in
January.

That didn’t prove to be a
good thing for Haggerty or RPI. Haggerty was held without a goal in
each of RPI’s first six games after Christmas break, and RPI
saw its record go from 8-4-4 to 8-10-4 with six straight
losses.

In postgame interview after
postgame interview, opposing coaches and players credited their
success to stopping RPI’s sniper, Haggerty, who opened the
year with 18 goals in the first 15 games.

“He wasn’t going to
stay on a streak like that forever,” RPI coach Seth Appert
said. “Regardless of who you are, it’s tough to score
in the second half of the season, and now every team is keying on
him, as they should.”

Still, there’s enough of a
history here for ECAC Hockey fans to take notice. Haggerty, a
6-foot, 200-pound right wing, was one of the top underclassmen in
the conference last season when RPI earned a first-round bye in the
ECAC Hockey tournament. But after a 26-point regular season,
Haggerty faded down the stretch, posting a minus-4 in the
plus/minus column in the quarterfinal series against Brown, which
RPI lost. The Engineers were the lone team in ECAC Hockey to fall
in a quarterfinal series on home ice.

As we head down the homestretch
of the 2013-14, it’s possible no player means as much to him
team’s fortunes as Haggerty, particularly since RPI’s
starting goaltender, Jason Kasdorf, went down with a season-ending
injury in November. Over a two-year period, it seems RPI goes as
Haggerty goes. To wit, in RPI’s first 10 games this season,
Haggerty scored 13 goals, and RPI went 6-2-2. The Engineers lost
the only two games in which Haggerty was held scoreless.

“He didn’t have as
much success down the stretch last year, but he’s like a lot
of great players,” Appert said. “He’s starting to
break out in his third and fourth year of college hockey.
He’s scoring because he’s playing the right way.
He’s had an increased commitment to two-way hockey.
He’s more committed to puck battles, and that leads to him
having the puck more.”

Haggerty has been dangerous with
the puck almost since he started skating around Stamford rinks
while holding on to egg crates at 1½ years old. He started
playing juniors with the Seacoast Spartans at the age of 15. Pitted
against players as many as four or five years his senior, Haggerty
finished second on the team in scoring in his first season.

He went on to play at Trinity
Catholic (Conn.) from 2007-09 and led that squad in scoring both
seasons. From there, he was selected to the U.S. National
Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich. He eventually served as an
assistant captain with the U.S. Under-18 Team in 2010-11. Serving
somewhat of a complementary role, Haggerty was a member of the
world championship American squad at the 2010 World Under-17 Hockey
Challenge in Timmins, Ont.

“That was different for
me,” Haggerty said. “Growing up playing hockey, I
always remember being one of the best players on my team. That
showed me that there are a lot of guys who can do the things I do
in the offensive end, and I needed to round out my game for
college.”

As a top-five scorer for the U18
national team, Haggerty began getting recruited by some of the top
Hockey East and ECAC programs. For a time, his father, Roger, who
was a two-sport star at Providence College in hockey and baseball,
hoped his son would follow in his footsteps and become a Friar. But
after seeing the way Appert made his son a priority, he was happy
to let his son follow his heart.

“Seth did all of the
recruiting himself, instead of what happens in most cases where
coaches have their assistants start the process, and they come in
later,” Roger Haggerty said. “That made Ryan feel very
comfortable. I have nothing against (former Providence hockey
coach) Timmy Army — I played with him in college. But we
heard nothing from anyone at Providence.”

Another large part of
Haggerty’s decision to attend RPI was the school’s
commitment to the hockey program. The locker rooms at Houston Field
House were updated after the 2008-09 season, and Appert was given a
four-year contract extension just before Haggerty’s
commitment. With national championships to its record in 1954 and
1985, RPI has proven it can compete at the highest level of NCAA
hockey.

To do so this season, Haggerty
will have to turn the clock back to November and December.

“I look it as a challenge
when teams try to stop me,” Haggerty said. “I can feel
it on the ice, teams have focused more attention on me. It makes me
want to work even harder to create space for myself so I can get
off my shot.”